Cradle and All

If you thought that American media outlets are little more than extensions of JounoList and the White House Press Office... well, you might be on to something.

Unlike the eight years that ended January 20th, the sharpest critiques of our failing and flailing government are now coming from those outside of America, as foreign newspapers do the job Americans won't do:

Helicopter Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve is dropping trillions of fresh paper dollars on the world economy, the President of the United States is cracking jokes on late night comedy shows, his energy minister is threatening a trade war over carbon emissions, his treasury secretary is dithering over a banking reform program amid rising concerns over his competence and a monumentally dysfunctional U.S. Congress is launching another public jihad against corporations and bankers.

As an aghast world — from China to Chicago and Chihuahua — watches, the circus-like U.S. political system seems to be declining into near chaos. Through it all, stock and financial markets are paralyzed. The more the policy regime does, the worse the outlook gets. The multi-ringed spectacle raises a disturbing question in many minds: Is this the end of America?

Probably not, if only because there are good reasons for optimism. The U.S. economy has pulled out of self-destructive political spirals in the past, spurred on by its business class and corporate leaders, the profit-making and market-creating people who rose above the political turmoil to once again lift the world out of financial crisis. It’s happened many times before, except for once, when it took 20 years to rise out of the Great Depression.

Past success, however, is no guarantee of future recovery, especially now when there are daily disasters and new indicators of political breakdown. All developments are not disasters in themselves. The AIG bonus firestorm is a diversion from real issues , but it puts the ghastly political classes who make U.S. law on display for what they are: ageing self-serving demagogues who have spent decades warping the U.S. political system for their own ends. We see the system up close, law-making that is riddled with slapdash, incompetence and gamesmanship.

One test of whether we are witnessing the end of America is how many more times Americans put up with congressional show trials of individual business people and their employees, slandering and vilifying them for their actions and motives. And for how long will they tolerate a President who berates business and corporations as dens of crime and malfeasance? If the majority of Americans come to accept the caricatures of business as true, then America is closer to the end of its life as a global leader, as a champion of markets and individualism.

Our incompetent Congress and President are so lacking in situational awareness that they can't see that nearly every move they've made has compounded the problems facing our country. Every massive spending bill passed, every angry attempt at placing the blame on others, every pathetic foreign policy rookie mistake and unforced diplomatic error, every abortive attempt to impose massive new government controls over American life, is pushing us closer towards a point where we have no confidence in our nation's supposed "leadership." Closer to a failed state than we could ever imagine.

A member of our Senate last week had the audacity to proclaim that businessmen should resign or commit suicide for accepting money they were owed under contract.

Perhaps some people should eat a bullet, or swallow a handful of pills with a bourbon chaser, or at least resign as a result of the horrific decisions they've made that have threatened and wrecked not just individual lives, but entire economies.

But there is no honor among thieves, and the thieves in our Congress and White House lack the integrity to do the honorable thing. They won't admit their incompetence and resign. They sure as Hell won't voluntarily die to assuage some foreign (to them) sense of honor.

I still hold out hope that we'll find a way to pull out of our current economic collapse, but the more Congress grandstands in order to ignore real problems, and the more our President bogs himself down in constant gaffes, petty dalliances, and dreams of social engineering the America of his dreams, the less likely it seems that will happen.